


Thanking Our Lucky Stars

by orphan_account



Category: Original Work
Genre: Characters are mine, F/M, Ghostfic, Song Lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-09 17:33:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1148875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard's devastated when his fiancé is killed aboard his starship. His sister helps him to deal with himself afterwards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thanking Our Lucky Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for my Creative Writing class's midterm. Please do not use "Niki"'s lyrics elsewhere without asking me first. Thanks for even looking. Feedback would be very much appreciated. This is kind of Star Trek if you squint, but the characters are all mine.

_No one ever carried my load_  
I’m too young to feel this old   
-Kings of Leon, “Cold Desert”

Leonard sat alone in the front row of chairs, in the space reserved for him. His hands were folded in his lap and his head was down, chin near his chest. A hand clapped onto his shoulder, and he looked up at the other person, his face twisted by grief. The grey clothing they both wore was in stark contrast to the bright frass, dotted occasionally with a spray of flowers. One such boquet sat in front of him, atop a thick slab of black marble. It had clearly been freshly cut, the leaves and petals still crisp and vibrant.   
"Why didn’t you come earlier?" Clara said fiercely. "Everyone noticed. And don’t tell me you were busy, because I checked the security feeds and you were moping in your room."   
He sighed and hunched his shoulders against her words. “I don’t know what you expect of me, Clara. She wouldn’t have wanted this-” he struggled to find the word “-ostentation. I don’t know how I know it, but I do. And I wasn’t moping, I was working. The world doesn’t stop turning for one girl, no matter how much I loved her. Life goes on, and I have a new ship to sign off on.”“Here’s the thing: I don’t care. Alright? You need to shape up and stop avoiding everything and everyone. I know how much it hurts. I was her best friend, dammit.” She swiped angry tears from her eyes. “Don’t write me off just because you think I’m too emotional. Or because of anything.”   
That got a reaction. “I am not writing you off. I’m doing what has to be done, and one of those things is working. Speaking of which, I need to get back to that.” He stood sharply, coldly asserting his authority. She smiled, but it wasn’t in any way an expression of happiness.   
"Good day, then, Captain." She made the last word sound like an insult. "I hope you can sleep tonight." A salute; the sound of departing feet on the lush grass as he dropped his head to his chest. Leonard stood there, trembling with a mixture of anger and sadness, for but a moment before kneeling to run his hand over the inscription on the stone. He stood, his eyes shining, and left.   
He didn’t look back.

_Do you wanna know a little irony about me?_  
I don’t know if I should tell this little irony about me…   
-Tom Milsom, “A Little Irony” 

"Captain’s Log. Dated 2233. Two years and one hundred sixty-three days since we left Earth. First Officer Clara King has been studying an anomaly in the ship. She says it may be based in a change in the filtration systems. We don’t know yet, but I will report on the issue as soon as possible. King out."   
"Supplementary logs, dated 2233. Acting Captain King here. The ship was attacked today by a warbird of unknown origin. The captain was severely injured in the fighting and is currently sedated in Medbay. The opposing ship fled once it was clear that we had the advantage. IT is unknown what race or species its crew were, but we are doing our best to find out. Yellow alert is being maintained shipwide while the matter is being investigated. Damage to the ship’s workings was minimal and is quickly being prepared. King out."   
Clara rose from her desk chair from which she had been recording wearily. She ignored the way her voice had broken for a second, pausing for but a moment to lock her door before leaving and making her way through the brushed steel halls. Her air of authority made people get out of her way, and she kept the brisk pace up all the way to her destination.   
When she reached it, she sat in the chair next to Leonard, reaching out to touch his hand and thinking vaguely, why do all hospital chairs have to be uncomfortable? Is it regulation or something? She leaned back and blinked away the brightness in her eyes. A nurse entered, and Clara had but to catch herself before the woman appeared and smiled at her gently. Clara must’ve made quite a sight, draped across the chair, waiting for the man in the bed to wake up. “He’ll be okay, you know. It was just a bit of shrapnel damage. The man’ll be right as rain, just you wait.”   
Clara smiled gratefully. “I’ll stay with him for a while, to keep him company.”   
"You do that, but if something happens, you comm me, you hear?" The nurse tapped the side of her nose and left, glancing at the readings one last time. Clara leaned forward, still touching his hand, and sighed.   
"You scared me, old friend." 

_Scream and shout if you wanna be resurrected  
Cause baby we’re marching home tonight_   
-Niki, “Coming Home”

The minute Leonard was cleared to get back to work, he did. No one really notice how quickly it happened. It just did. If anyone bothered to thing about it, they would assume it was another attibute of the best captain in the Fleet. The man himself wondered at it, of course, but pushed the thoughts away. Stranger things had happened, and were happening. He just had to learn how to deal.   
It was like that, at first. Little things, enough to be noticed but not wondered at too hard. A quicker healing than normal circumstances, a mood boost for someone who had a mental disorder. Sleep, of course, for the troubled mind. She did that trick a lot, the first year.   
But it starts getting more and more noticeable. A flash of gold at the very edge of your vision, and a perfectly workable idea comes upon you for the project you’re working on, or you know to dodge smartly to the left before you’re crushed by a container of falling materials.Whispers start to circulate.   
Some are more ridiculous than others. Did you hear? There’s an immortal guy on board who’s messing with life. Others are closer to home. All of them sound crazy to me.   
But I won’t tell you which are which.   
What would be the fun in that?   
I spend my days hidden away, emerging to do good by the people who surrounded me with love for all my life, and I know I’m doing the right thing. It’s a lonely life, I must admit it. No one knows I’m here, and I plan to keep it that way for at lest a week or more later. Who knows?

_I will rise when you call my name_  
No more sorrow, no more pain   
I will rise on eagle’s wings…   
Chris Tomlin, “Rise”

Leonard turned around when he heard the knock at his door. “Who is it?”   
"Clara, sir. Permission to come in and talk with you?"   
"Granted. Come on in."   
She opened the door slowly, almost tiptoeing over the floor. “May I speak to you off the record?” she asked. “This really isn’t something that other people should hear.”   
"Whatever you need, Commander." He turned off the micropone that was mounted in his desk and swiveled around in his office chair.   
"You’ve heard the rumors?" Typical her. She’d always been that way- unabashedly blunt.   
"Yes, of course I have. What of it? There’s most likely nothing in it." Skeptical. Sell him fast on this, love.   
"I’ve been making notes, putting together a portfolio, and so far this thing seems to be a real phenomenon. Shouldn’t we be wondering how it works, sir? Taking apart the sensation until we find what makes it tick?" She came a little closer, puts a hand on the arm of him chair, standing over him. "As a scientist, I want to know."   
He looked up with a put-upon expression. “Then do. Why are you badgering me about this? It’s not my department.”   
"Because I have a hypothesis, if you will, and It’s not much more than a hunch, but it makes sound quite intelligent. Leonard, what if it’s Sara? Our Sara?"   
His eyes flared with hope, but were quickly extinguished. “How could that possibly be? She’s dead, remember?”   
She huffed irritably. “I meant as some kind of spirit, you blooy idiot. It would explain so much- the flashes of gold, seeing as it was her favorite color, and the energy fluctuations in the areas where something’s happened.”   
He stood still for a moment, looking skeptical. To fix his resolve, I pushed him towards the end of his chair. Lightly, so as not to hurt him. He looked up at the air in my general direction along with Clara, face practically radiant with hope.   
It was back, for the first time since I’d left him.   
"Thank you."


End file.
